Wednesday, March 1, 2017

I grew up surrounded by all things Jane Austen. She died in my hometown of Winchester in the county of Hampshire in England, and is buried in Winchester Cathedral. She spent much of her life in Hampshire, and lived her last eight years in Chawton, near Winchester. The cottage is a museum in her honor.

Where Jane Austen died, now a private house, in Winchester

I love Jane Austen, but it wasn't always so. She was my mother's favorite author, and Pride and Prejudice was her favorite book; that alone was almost enough for me to dislike her. Then I was forced to read Persuasion for my 'A' levels and that clinched it. I didn't want to. Ugh. Jane Austen. Ugh. And because I was a silly 17-year-old, I didn't read it, at least, not properly. Somehow, I managed to pass the exam with a good grade -- better than I deserved, obviously, but not what it could've been.

A few years later, when I was commuting daily by train from Winchester to London and back, and reading several books a week during my two hours a day, ten hours a week, on the train, I happened to finish a book on the journey to London, and had to get something at lunch time for the train home. I found a copy of Persuasion in a second-hand bookshop on the Charing Cross Road, and almost as a joke I bought it and began it while waiting for the train to depart Waterloo Station. I was hooked. Hooked good and proper. Hooked forever. It's now my favorite book.

I've read and/or seen TV or movie productions of everything Jane Austen has given us. Without fail, each time a new version of one of her books comes out, I watch it, critique it, then wish I could be in it. I've dreamed I might be pretty much every character she ever created. I was unsuccessful in earlier auditions, but now, finally, at last, TA DA! -- it's going to happen. Because Austin Playhouse is doing Sense and Sensibility, and director, Lara Toner has cast me!

We had our first read-through last night, and we laughed and laughed because, even before a playwright adapts or reinvents Jane Austen's work, it's funny. It's very funny. It's hilarious. And I may not be Elinor or Marianne or Lucy or Anne or Fanny, but it doesn't matter. I really don't mind. I simply longed to be a part of something Jane Austen, and now I can say that I am. Come join us at the Austin Playhouse, opening Friday, 31 March 2017. I can hardly wait to share it with you all.

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Excerpts from letters to England (grammar and spelling
choices have been left intact)

Tripoli, 24th July 1984

"Another thing which is quite interesting is that some
of the Tripoli Players are doing a sound recording for some educational tapes
to teach Libyans English words and grammar, and they have asked me if I would
consider doing some recording as well, since I have such a clear voice. Someone
remembered me from the CALL MY BLUFF evening and suggested me. Nice to be
remembered. Mind you, I'll probably bungle it on the day, stutter so much that
no one will understand a single word, English or otherwise.”

Focused on my "True" and "Bluff" words at the CALL MY BLUFF night

Tripoli, 31st July 1984

“The sound recording went very well last night. I was
terribly nervous at first, particularly since I only knew a couple of the
people there and I didn't know them well. It was a proper recording studio with
the soundproof booth in which the speakers had to sit, and out of which, guys
ran around, twiddling knobs and setting up tapes. I had to read twice, long
passages with Arabic names I had never seen before, certainly never had to say
aloud before. You get the chance to read it once aloud and then you record.
Well, it was fine. After I'd lost my nerves a bit, it wasn't so bad at all.
Listening to myself afterwards was the worst. I sound so high-pitched and I've
always thought of myself as having quite a low voice. I'm having to train myself
to speak more slowly; you know what I'm like, gabble gabble. I shall be there
again twice next week and so on, until the whole book has been recorded. It is
to teach children, a whole book with specialised grammar and words which the
authorities here consider useful, like the life of bees, the use of a forklift
truck, a visit to Sabratha. Honestly, when I think of *JANET AND JOHN, it makes
me laugh!”

Originally, these books were based on a series published by
Row Peterson and Company as the Alice and Jerry books in the United
States. Alice and Jerry was written by Mabel O'Donnell and the stories
were illustrated by Florence and Margaret Hoopes. In 1949 United Kingdom
publishers James Nisbet and Company licensed them and had them Anglicised by
Mabel O'Donnell and Rona Munro to make a UK series of four books called Janet
and John. The Janet and John books used the same artwork as the Alice and Jerry
books but completely new text was written by Munro, originally a New Zealander.
Also in 1949 a New Zealand series of seven books was released by Nisbet and
used as a textbook in New Zealand primary schools.

The books became hugely popular and influential in the
teaching of schoolchildren throughout the 1950s and 1960s. This was one of the
first popular "look-and-say" reading schemes and, as such, introduced
the less regular "Key words" at an earlier stage of reading than the phonics schemes.

Janet and John were portrayed as average English children,
living a typical middle-class life that reinforced many of the stereotypes
of the time, and the books consisted of stories that progressively incorporated
key words needed in the development of reading skills:

Dear Blog Friend

My mum (in England) and I (wherever I happened to be living) used to write each other every week...snail-mail letters, of course. When we both got computers and email became popular, we wrote every day...about everything, from the weather to what our neighbors were doing, from the political situation to popular shows on the telly. When she died, not only did I miss my lovely mum, I missed our regular written conversations; and I lost my daily writing fix. Now I admit the messages were sometimes ridiculously banal but they were often hilarious and always fun to receive. So to start with at least, I'm going to imagine my blog is a note to my mum in the hope that you'll like reading it as much I liked reading her notes to me.